The PREFACE prefixed to POPE's and SWIFT's Mifcellanies, in 4 volumes 12170, 1727.

THE papers that compofe the first of these volumes

were printed about eighteen years ago, to which there are now added two or three fmall tracts; and the verfes are transferred into the fourth volume apart, with the addition of fuch others as we fince have writ ten. The fecond and third will confist of several small treatises in profe, in which a friend or two is concerned with us.

Having both of us bcen extremely ill treated by fome bookfellers, especially one Edmund Curll, it was our o pinion, that the best method we could take for justifying ourfelves, would be to publish whatever loofe papers, in profe and verfe, we have formerly written; not only fuch as have already ftole into the world (very much to our regret, and perhaps very little to our credit), but fuch as in any probability hereafter may run the fame fate; having been obtained from us by the importunity, and divulged by the indifcretion of friends, although reftrained by promifes, which few of them are ever known to obferve, and often think they make us a compliment in breaking.

But the confequences have been still worfe: we have been intitled, and have had our names prefixed at length, to whole volumes of mean productions, equally offenfive to good manners and good fenfe, which we never saw nor heard of till they appeared in print.

For a forgery in fetting a falfe name to a writing, which may prejudice another's fortune, the law punishes the offender with the lofs of his cars; but has inflicted no adequate penalty for fuch as prejudice another's reputation in doing the fame thing in print; though all and every individual book, fo fold under a falfe name, are manifeftly so many feveral and multiplied forgeries. Indeed we hoped, that the good nature, or at least the good judgment of the world, would have cleared us from the imputation of fuch things, as had been thus VOL. II.

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charged

charged upon us by the malice of eneinies, the want of judgment in friends, the unconcern of indifferent perfons, and the confident affertions of booksellers.

We are afhained to find fo ill a taste prevail, as to make it a neceffary work to do this juftice to ourselves. It is very poffible for any author to write below himself; either his fubject not proving fo fruitful, or fitted for him, as he at firft imagined; or his health, or his humour, or the prefent difpolition of his mind, unqualifying him at that juncture: however, if he poffeffed any distinguishing marks of style, or peculiarity of thinking, there would remain in his leaft fuccessful writings fome few tokens, whereby perfons of tafte might difcover him.

But fince it hath otherwife fallen out, we think we have fufficiently paid for our want of prudence, and determine for the future to be lefs communicative: or rather, having done with fuch amusements, we are refolved to give up what we cannot fairly difown, to the feverity of critics, the malice of perfonal enemies, and the indulgence of friends.

We are forry for the fatire interspersed in some of these pieces upon a few people, from whom the highest provocations have been received, and who, by their conduct fince, have fhewn, that they have not yet forgiven us the wrong they did. It is a very unlucky circumftance, to be obliged to retaliate the injuries of fuch authors, whose works are fo foon forgotten, that we are in danger already of appearing the first aggreffors. It is to be lamented, that Virgil let pafs a line, which told pofterity he had two enemies, called Bavius and Mævius. The wifeft way is not once to name them, but (as the madman ad fed the gentleman, who told him he wore a fword to kill his enemies), to let them alone, and they would die of themselves. And according to this rule we have acted throughout all those writings which we defigned for the prefs: but in thefe, the publication whereof was not owing to our folly, but that of others, the omillion of the names was not in our power. At the worst we can only give them that liberty now for fomething, which they have fo many years exercised for nothing, of railing and fcribbling against us. And it is fome commendation, that we have not done it all this while, but

avoided

avoided publicly to characterise any perfon without long experience. Nonum prematur in annum, is a good rule for all writers, but chiefly for writers of characters; becaufe it may happen to those who vent praise or cenfure too precipitately, as it did to an eminent English poet, who celebrated a young nobleman for erecting Dryden's monument upon a promife, which his Lordfhip forgot, till it was done by another.

In regard to two perfons only we wish our raillery, though ever fo tender, or refentment, though ever fo juft, had not been indulged. We fpeak of Sir John Vanbrugh, who was a inan of wit, and of honour; and of Mr Addison, whofe name deferves all respect from every lover of learning.

We cannot deny (and perhaps moft writers of our kind have been in the fame circumftances) that in feveral parts of our lives, and according to the difpofitions we were in, we have written fome things which we may wish never to have thought on. Some fallies of levity ought to be imputed to youth, (fupposed in charity, as it was in truth, to be the time in which we wrote them); others to the gaiety of our minds at certain junctures common to all men. The publishing of thefe, which we cannot difown, and without our confent, is, I think, a greater injury, than that of afcribing to us the most ftupid productions, which we can wholly deny.

This has been ufually practifed in other countries after a man's decease; which in a great measure accounts for that manifeft inequality found in the works of the best authors; the collectors only confidering, that fo many more sheets raise the price of the book; and the greater fame a writer is in poffeffion of, the more of fuch traffi he bear to have tacked to him. Thus it is apparently the editor's intereft to infert what the author's judgment had rejected; and care is always taken to interfperfe thefe additions in fuch a manner, that fcarce any book of confequence can be bought, without purchafing fomething unworthy of the author along with it.

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But in our own country it is ftill worfe: thofe very bookfellers, who have fupported themselves upon an author's fame while he lived, have done their utmost after his death to leffen it by fuch practices: even a man's last

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will

will is not fecure from being expofed in print; whereby his most particular regards, and even his dying tenderneffes, are laid open. It has been humorously faid, that fome have fifhed the very jakes for papers left there by men of wit: but it is no jest to affirm, that the cabinets of the fick, and the closets of the dead, have been broke open and ranfacked to publish our private letters, and divulged to all mankind the moft fecret fentiments and intercourfe of friendship. Nay, thefe fellows are arrived to that height of impudence, that when an author has publicly disowned a fpurious piece, they have difputed his own name with him in printed advertisements; which has been practised to Mr Congreve and Mr Prior.

We are therefore compelled, in respect to truth, to fubmit to a very great hardfhip; to own fuch pieces as in our ftricter judginents we would have fuppreffed for ever: we are obliged to confefs, that this whole collection, in a manner, confifts of what we not only thought unlikely to reach the future, but unworthy even of the prefent age; not our ftudies, but our follies; not our works, but our idleneffes.

Some comfort however it is, that all of them are innocent, and moft of them, flight as they are, had yet a moral tendency; either to foften the virulence of parties against each other; or to laugh out of countenance fome vice or folly of the time; or to difcredit the impofitions of quacks and falfe pretenders to science; or to humble the arrogance of the ill-natured and envious; in a word, to leffen the vanity, and promote the good humour of mankind.

Such as they are, we must in truth confefs, they are ours, and others fhould in juftice believe, they are all that are ours. If any thing elfe has been printed, in which we really had any hand, it is either intolerably imperfect, or loaded with fpurious additions; fometimes even with infertions of mens names, which we never meant, and for whom we have an esteein and respect. Even thofe pieces in which we are least injured, have never before been printed from the true copies, or with any tolerable degree of correctness. We declare, that this collection contains every piece, which in the idleft humour we have written; not only fuch as came under

our